Saving Lives at Birth: Grand Challenge-Round 2

USAID, the Government of Norway, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Grand Challenges Canada, and The World Bank have announced a second round of request for applications for innovative prevention and treatment approaches for pregnant women and newborns in low-resource settings. Applications are due by March 29, 2012.

Frontline Health Workers Coalition Launched

Sixteen non-governmental organizations have joined together to champion the frontline health worker, often the first and only contact for health care in low-resource settings. For more information on this important cause, please visit: http://frontlinehealthworkers.org

Poor maternal, newborn and child health remains a significant problem in developing countries. Worldwide, 358 000 women die during pregnancy and childbirth every year and an estimated 7.6 million children die under the age of five. The majority of maternal deaths occur during or immediately after childbirth. The common medical causes for maternal death include bleeding, high blood pressure, prolonged and obstructed labour, infections and unsafe abortions. A child’s risk of dying is highest during the first 28 days of life when about 40% of under-five deaths take place, translating into three million deaths. Up to one half of all newborn deaths occur within the first 24 hours of life and 75% occur in the first week. Globally, the main causes of neonatal death are preterm birth, severe infections and asphyxia. Children in low-income countries are nearly 18 times more likely to die before the age of five than children in high-income countries. In this document, the WHO outlines review of the key interventions related to reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health.

DEC

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Call for Innovative Health Technologies for Low-Resource Settings

Medical devices are indispensable in health care delivery as tools for prevention, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation. However, despite the exponential growth of scientific and technological development, availability of and access to appropriate and affordable health technologies in low- and middle-income countries are still insufficient. The Medical Devices unit of WHO aims to help make available the benefits of core health technologies with the purpose to address global health concerns by developing a framework for health technology management, assessment and regulation and by challenging the scientific and business community to identify and develop innovative technologies. This call for innovative health technologies aims at identifying innovative health technologies which address global health concerns and which are likely to be appropriate and affordable for use in low-resource settings. Selected innovative technologies will be published in the "Compendium of innovative health technologies for low-resource settings 2012" on the Medical Devices website of WHO and will be available to all interested stakeholders.

The Call for innovative health technologies for low-resource settings is open to all. This includes manufacturers, institutions, academia, individuals and non-profit organizations which design, manufacture and/or supply any type of innovative health technologies that are suitable for use in low-resource settings and address the global health concerns.